Related papers: Untying molecular friction knots
When injected through a contraction, high molecular weight polymer solutions exhibit a sharp increase of apparent viscosity which originates from stretching polymer chains above a critical extension rate. This chain stretching can also…
In this paper the number and lengths of minimal length lattice knots confined to slabs of width $L$, is determined. Our data on minimal length verify the results by Sharein et.al. (2011) for the similar problem, expect in a single case,…
We study how confinement affects topology and conformations in polymer films of varying thickness $h$. The knotting probability exhibits a maximum at intermediate thicknesses near the bulk radius of gyration $h \approx R_\mathrm{g,bulk}$,…
We investigate with numerical simulations the influence of topology and stiffness on macroscopic rheological properties of polymer melts consisting of unknotted, knotted or concatenated rings. While melts of flexible, knotted oligomer rings…
We consider the unwinding of two lattice polymer strands of length N that are initially wound around each other in a double-helical conformation and evolve through Rouse dynamics. The problem relates to quickly bringing a double-stranded…
The adhesive and frictional response of an AFM tip connected to a substrate through supramolecular host-guest complexes is investigated by dynamic Monte Carlo simulations. The variation of the pull-off force with the unloading rate recently…
The thermal properties of coarse grained knotted polymers containing two kinds of monomers $A$ and $B$ fluctuating in a solution are investigated on a simple cubic lattice using the Wang-Landau MC algorithm. These knots have a more complex…
We present a methodology to simulate the mechanics of knots in elastic rods using geometrically nonlinear, full three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis. We focus on the mechanical behavior of knots in tight configurations, for which…
We present molecular dynamics friction calculations for confined hydrocarbon solids with molecular lengths from 20 to 1400 carbon atoms. Two cases are considered: (a) polymer sliding against a hard substrate, and (b) polymer sliding on…
Shear thickening of particle suspensions is characterized by a transition between lubricated and frictional contacts between the particles. Using 3D numerical simulations, we study how the inter-particle friction coefficient influences the…
The breakage of a polymer chain of segments, coupled by anharmonic bonds with applied constant external tensile force is studied by means of Molecular Dynamics simulation. We show that the mean life time of the chain becomes progressively…
Polymer chains decorated with a fraction of monomers capable of forming reversible bonds form transient polymer networks that are important in soft and biological systems. If chains are flexible and the attractive monomers are all of the…
The advent of solid state nanodevices allows for interrogating the physico-chemical properties of a polyelectrolyte chain by electrophoretically driving it through a nanopore. Salient dynamical aspects of the translocation process have been…
The friction force on a test particle traveling through a plasma that is both strongly coupled and strongly magnetized is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. In addition to the usual stopping power component aligned antiparallel…
The topological effects on the thermal properties of several knot configurations are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations. In order to check if the topology of the knots is preserved during the thermal fluctuations we propose a method…
We introduce a model of friction between two contacting (stationary or co-sliding) rough surfaces, each comprising a random ensemble of polydisperse hemispherical bumps. In the simplest version of the model, the bumps experience on contact…
We study the nucleation and development of crack patterns in thin composite fibers under tension in this work. A fiber comprises an elastic core and an outer layer of a weaker brittle material. In recent tensile experiments on such…
Dry solid friction is often accompanied by force modulations originating from stick-slip instabilities. Here a distinct, quasi-static mechanism is evidenced leading to quasi-periodic force oscillations during sliding contact between an…
We probe the character of knotting in open, confined polymers, assigning knot types to open curves by identifying their projections as virtual knots. In this sense, virtual knots are transitional, lying in between classical knot types,…
Protein molecules often self-assemble by means of non-covalent physical bonds to form extended filaments, such as amyloids, F-actin, intermediate filaments, and many others. The kinetics of filament growth is limited by the disassembly…